I confess I have not detected much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the news that the palace of Westminster, home of the Lords and Commons, is falling down, and will slide into the Thames in a decade or two unless what speaker John Bercow calls the “not inconsequential” sum of £3bn is spent tarting it up. Let it slide seems to be the general view, preferably with most of its present occupants in it.
When the old palace burned down in 1834, its mock-Gothic replacement – the style was chosen as a consciously reactionary throwback to the Middle Ages – took 30 years to build. The original estimate for construction was well under a million quid. It came in at double that, and no doubt Bercow’s £3bn will in the end be £6bn and rising. Not inconsequential? In fact, far too much. Forget it.
The palace of Westminster should instead be sold to a luxury hotel chain. With its wonderful location, views and historical associations, it will be possible to flog it for billions and the new owners can pick up the tab for fixing the plumbing.
Of course, this leaves us in need of somewhere else for our legislators, but no decision on relocation should be made until we decide how many we require. Clearly, we don’t need 850 lords. In fact, most rational people would say we don’t need any lords at all, picking up their £300 a day (plus subsidised food) for doing not very much. So at a stroke we can lose well over half the people the new building will have to accommodate. While we’re at it, let’s cut the number of MPs to 500 (paying special attention to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs, who have their own parliaments and assemblies), and limit the number of special advisers, researchers and family hangers-on each MP has. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Let’s assume we have about 3,000 people to accommodate, rather than the tens of thousands who currently occupy not just the palace of Westminster but surrounding buildings too. When the old palace burned down, William IV offered the homeless MPs the use of Buckingham Palace, which he disliked. They turned it down, preferring to go on sitting in the ruins of the old palace, but Buck House might again be a possibility. The Queen, after all, is not short of palaces.
But it may pay to be more radical. Bercow and others have suggested moving out of London completely, and that certainly appeals. It will be cheaper – expense accounts will be trimmed if parliamentarians are eating in McDonald’s in, say, Cleethorpes, where the Pleasure Island theme park might prove an unusual and inspiring new home. And it will offset the London-centricity that everyone agrees needs to be countered.
There are other options. The mathematically minded might suggest building the new parliament in the most central spot in the UK, though where that spot is is hotly disputed: both Haltwhistle in Northumberland and Dunsop Bridge have their supporters. Whether those claimants would melt away if Bercow and his gang threatened to relocate to their backyard is another matter. Coventry might be good – many voters would respond positively to the prospect of sending their MP to Coventry.
There will of course be security implications which could have a bearing on the location. It might be best to choose an island for the new parliament – some might consider the Scilly Isles a natural home. Dartmoor prison is another possibility: large, secure, imposing and due to close in the next decade. Or the new building could be put underground at some undisclosed location, from which the muffled sound of prime minister’s questions would only occasionally be heard.
I would favour a peripatetic parliament, rather like a medieval court, visiting all parts of the kingdom. In our digital age, parliamentarians can work from anywhere, and have no need of a specific building. They can be the first generation of Starbucks legislators. This may make them less secure, but will certainly tick all the openness, accessibility and transparency boxes they’re always banging on about.
A parliamentary train (ideally nationalised) could ferry them round the country – the whole country, not just England – and their plenary sessions could be held in large tents. How wonderfully exciting that would be, like some great evangelical gathering. The train will be a marvellous sight as it travels round the country, greeted by cheering crowds. Politics will be reborn; our lawmakers humanised and galvanised; and it won’t cost £3bn. Over to you, Mr Speaker.
